In a subsequent interview with William Manchester about the events of the assassination, within an official document, Hoover states: "...the FBI immediately entered the case despite non jurisdiction and as soon as he (Oswald) was made available..."

The FBI breached Oswald's civil rights by illegal questioning, influencing events they had no legal basis in, handling evidence, all these actions are often considered obstruction of justice. Oswald was illegally held and questioned by repeated Bureau agents, they knew it was illegal and acted despite the rights of the suspect.

In a memo to Melvin Belin an official expresses the many violations of jurisdiction later occurring regarding Oswald. His wife under regular laws could not testify against Oswald even posthumously. Thus most relevant testimony of Marina violates Oswald's rights. Additionally some the evidence the Commission used would not be allowed in a Federal court or the State of Texas. ii.

While Federal officials did subsequently achieve a grant of jurisdiction, it was long after they trampled Oswald's civil rights in the initial days of the criminal investigation.

The following is a transcript of a phone call between J. Edgar Hoover and Walter Jenkins adviser to President Johnson. The document was classified until after Hoover's death. In the document and the review by officials attached to it Hoover states the following:

"Oswald having been killed after our warnings to the Dallas Police Department is inexcusable. It will allow I am afraid a lot of civil rights people to raise a lot of hell because he was handcuffed and had no weapon. There are bound to be some elements in our society that will holler their heads off that his civil rights were violated--(Official edit) which they were." i.

gerrrycam wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Claus I would think the killing of President of USA would invoke Federal law over State

My reading of it is that any "over-riding" or "supremacy" would occur only in the event of conflict between state and federal laws.

There was no such legal conflict here because there was no federal law pertaining to the murder of a president. In the absence of a federal statute, it came under Texas law.

_________________Mixing Pop and Politics he asks me what the use isI offer him embarrassment and my usual excusesWhile looking down the corridorOut to where the van is waitingI'm looking for the Great Leap Forward Billy Bragg-----------------------------Australians don't mind criminals: It's successful bullshit artists we despise. Lachie Hulme -----------------------------The Cold War ran on bullshit. Me

It is my further understanding that LBJ had the authority to deploy the FBI into the investigation and he used that authority. I think Civil Rights was the pretext used and you see "civil rights" invoked on numerous FBI reports captioned under Oswald. From a technical point of view, I don't believe there was a real civil rights issue until his murder. Loss of life and liberty etc...

_________________Mixing Pop and Politics he asks me what the use isI offer him embarrassment and my usual excusesWhile looking down the corridorOut to where the van is waitingI'm looking for the Great Leap Forward Billy Bragg-----------------------------Australians don't mind criminals: It's successful bullshit artists we despise. Lachie Hulme -----------------------------The Cold War ran on bullshit. Me

Greg I agree with your assessment, I agree Johnson's right to deploy them after they obtained jurisdiction. However it is the many breaches before Waggoner Car acted to legalize the Bureau's involvement that are in my view at best grievous incompetence and worst premeditated illegality. At least on Hoover's part it was the latter, and no one accomplished decades of illegality under the banner of government quite like J. Edgar Hoover.

The Feds could immediately claim jurisdiction because he was supposed to be carrying a forged US document-- that super fake Selective Service card. That's enough to swoop him into federal custody forthwith (I can't remember offhand if false papers were a 5 year or 10 year prison bit back then). If they could plausibly claim he had some help (thanks for the ride Frazier!), they could charge Oswald (alone even) with conspiracy to deny Jack Kennedy's civil rights, another 10 year bit. Whether or not they could pin a conspirator on him, every lie he told in the presence of a federal agent would be a fresh count of false statements to a federal official. Those are 5 years a pop, after a weekend of interrogation the FBI guys could probably come up with a dozen. Of course, if the Feds wanted the death penalty for the guy, he clearly violated the Espionage Act, he defected to Russia and announced to US embassy his intent to share defense secrets he learned in the Marines with the Soviets. That's enough for a conviction.

beowulf wrote:The Feds could immediately claim jurisdiction because he was supposed to be carrying a forged US document-- that super fake Selective Service card. That's enough to swoop him into federal custody forthwith (I can't remember offhand if false papers were a 5 year or 10 year prison bit back then). If they could plausibly claim he had some help (thanks for the ride Frazier!), they could charge Oswald (alone even) with conspiracy to deny Jack Kennedy's civil rights, another 10 year bit. Whether or not they could pin a conspirator on him, every lie he told in the presence of a federal agent would be a fresh count of false statements to a federal official. Those are 5 years a pop, after a weekend of interrogation the FBI guys could probably come up with a dozen. Of course, if the Feds wanted the death penalty for the guy, he clearly violated the Espionage Act, he defected to Russia and announced to US embassy his intent to share defense secrets he learned in the Marines with the Soviets. That's enough for a conviction.

Thanks for the clarifications.

The one problem with using carrying a forged US document is that the cards were not mentioned in any way shape of form verbally or in writing until Saturday and there is a consensus that the reason for this is that he never had them at all.

Indeed, to the best of my knowledge, there is nothing in the records which states or even hints at those cards being the reason for the feds entering the case.

_________________Mixing Pop and Politics he asks me what the use isI offer him embarrassment and my usual excusesWhile looking down the corridorOut to where the van is waitingI'm looking for the Great Leap Forward Billy Bragg-----------------------------Australians don't mind criminals: It's successful bullshit artists we despise. Lachie Hulme -----------------------------The Cold War ran on bullshit. Me

Beowulf,The Bureau could have done many of the things you stated, however it would require a normal criminal prosecution to occur. This would immediately trigger Oswald's civil rights. He would have been entitled to at least speak to a legal representative. He would not have faced 12 hours of off and on interrogation, his wife's statements would have been subject to spousal privilege in some instances. The presumption of legal innocence would have existed. Instead we have Hoover claiming days later his guilt was confirmed in the press. All this prejudicial evidence would not be allowed. The cards you refer may have been cast out of evidence based on no probable cause and insufficient evidence, in my view. As the Belin document I provided shows, they ignored most legal procedures and protections which stood in their path to Oswald's conviction.

Last edited by Carmine Savastano on Sat 17 May 2014, 8:15 am; edited 2 times in total (Reason for editing : text corrections)